


Aldabra Rail

by clerati



Category: X-Men (Original Timeline Movies)
Genre: Eventual Smut, F/M, Fluff, Mutual Pining, Post-X-Men: The Last Stand (2006), Romance, Slow Burn, UST
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-02
Updated: 2021-03-10
Packaged: 2021-03-12 09:15:12
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 11
Words: 16,107
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28508040
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/clerati/pseuds/clerati
Summary: The Cure is permanent and John comes home.
Relationships: John Allerdyce/Rogue, some Bobby Drake/Kitty Pryde, some Bobby Drake/Rogue
Kudos: 11





	1. Return

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Chapter rating: T  
> Late Spring, Year One

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I make three promises: 1) This fic will be saccharine! 2) This fic will have troupes! 3) This fic will never take itself too seriously!

Kitty doesn’t want to be the one to tell him, but she doesn’t want the first time he finds out to be a fist fight either. Well, fist fight if they’re lucky. He’s sitting next to his girlfriend. They’re sharing a bowl of strawberry crumple, and it’s just typical because his favorite is rocky road and maybe it’s not fair but it feels like Rogue always gets everything she wants.

Kitty slips over to the counter where they’re huddled together. It splits their attention, and Bobby gives her one of his big, charming smiles. “Hey.”  
  
“Hey.” Her voice is a feather riding the wind. “I kind of have bad news.”  
  
Bobby’s smile actually cracks into a wide grin, and Kitty realizes he thinks she’s making a joke. _I have bad news, you guys are giving me a toothache. I have bad news, there’s a run on ice cream and there’s only rocky road left. I have bad news, you’re so beautiful it’s making my eyes hurt._

Rogue’s lips are forming a tight line. “What happened?” Rogue’s seen enough bad in her life that her blood runs hot at the suggestion of trouble.

Kitty swears her heart is actually beating slower. Time to drop the bomb. “Pyro’s back.” Her eyes are locked on Bobby as his smile slips and his sapphire eyes try to register.

“Where did you hear this?” Bright, blue eyes intent on her. 

“I saw him. I thought I needed to get my eyes checked, but it was him. Scott was showing him to his new room.”

"I don’t understand." Bobby continues. "He fought with the Brotherhood at Alcatraz. He attacked me. They just let him back in?"

Kitty feels bad for him. Bobby is the forgiving type, but Pyro’s not. He looks scared. "That’s all I-" she starts, but Rogue cuts her off.

"Bobby, he’s our friend." Her face is halfway between ecstatic and reproceful, like she’s trying to play the disapproving school teacher but can’t hold the joy back.

Bobby turns to face Rogue, their hands still together. "No, he’s not, not anymore." He leans toward her instinctively. He does that a lot, just moves his body closer to Rogue’s like there’s some magnetic pull he forgets to resist. "He blew up Cure clinics, you know."

Rogue’s lips tighten. For someone who enjoys the perks of the Cure, she’s sensitive about it being brought up. “He’s John.” Her voice is soft, but definitive. Her eyes are wild as a smile starts to form again.  
  
“Well, he’s in the east corridor if you want to catch up.” Maybe it’s not fair, but if she wants to tie her lot with Pyro, Kitty is happy to keep Bobby company.  
  
Bobby grabs her hand under the counter, squeezes it lightly. They seem to have an entire conversation in the looks between them. It’s something private that Kitty just can’t break through.  
  
“If he’s back…” Rogue seems to think that’s explanation enough, because she just gets up and leaves the room. 

Bobby follows, because he has to. Kitty follows too, because everyone needs someone, and she’s pretty sure the chain starts with Pyro and ends with her.

* * *

There’s a stack of rooms in the east corridor that have been filling up. It seems like every mutant in the country is either in hiding or cured. The state of things has the mansion filling up. Rogue imagines the Brotherhood is feeling the same influx. So, if he’s here, he must really be back. 

Her heart is pounding in her ears as she goes door by door. There’s something desperate in her limbs, she realizes. She stops for a breath, doesn’t know where this is coming from. _It’s just been a long time is all._ _  
_ _  
_ She realizes Bobby and Kitty trailed behind her. Bobby’s eyes are all concern, but he’s hanging back. She gives a small smile, and gets back to the work of knocking when she hears John.  
  
He swings the door open hard, and then he’s there looking back at them from the doorway. 

His expression plays anger, shock, embarrassment, and something else too that she can’t put her finger on. There’s something dark in his eyes, and his mouth opens like he’s going to say something but nothing comes out. She barely registers all of it before she throws herself around him, arms locking around his neck.  
  
“John.” It’s a whisper, something like a plea. It’s relief letting out like the whistle of a tea kettle. 

He takes a sharp breath from the shock of it, and closes his eyes like instinct. One of his hands falls into the small of her back and the other is cupping the back of her neck. His brain just hasn’t caught up with his body, because all he can think is _skin, skin, skin._ She’s bare, and he’s touching her, and he hoped she wouldn’t do it but the proof is indisputable. He slips his hands to her waist and shoulder, and pushes her away with an uncharacteristic gentleness. “You really did it.” 

She’s shocked by how hard his eyes are. His mouth is in a loose frown. He looks tired. “John…”  
  
He lets out an unsteady breath, his eyes scanning her face. It’s like looking straight at the sun, and he looks away. Bobby’s stepped a little closer and there’s some frost forming on his hand in threat. John tightens his grip with the hand that’s still on her waist, and he feels his mouth twist. He pushes her away a little harder now, not giving her so much as a glance. “You want to go a round?”  
  
“Don’t.” Rogue’s put herself between them. She’s facing John, but his face leaves no room for the tenderness she’s offered him. She turns. “Bobby, no.” She goes to him. “Come on, you don’t have to.”

Rogue takes her boyfriend’s hand, feels how chilly it is and envelopes it between both her hands. She runs her thumbs up and down hoping the friction will help things.

“What’re you doing here?” Bobby’s eyes are locked on John’s that’re locked on Bobby’s. Neither one of them seem to register her, and Kitty’s just standing there like she’s not sure what she wants to happen next.  
  
John sneers. “I live here.” His head tilts in punctuation as he says it. He backs into his room, hand grabbing the knob behind his back, and he’s gone behind a closed door in one swift motion.  
  
Kitty lets out a hard breath, and Rogue realizes she can hear her heart beating again. 

“We should go.” Kitty is speaking into the void with that one. Bobby and Rogue both are a little shaken, a little too intense to feel that the moment is over.  
  
“He’ll warm up. He’s just gotten back.” Rogue’s voice is cracking a little.  
  
A soft sigh. “I wouldn’t count on it.” The lines of Bobby’s body are all protectiveness now. All he sees in John blowing up a Cure clinic while knowing she might be inside. He looks down at her hands holding onto him. “Kitty’s right. We should just call it a night.”  
  
She nods, turns to Kitty who’s just standing there, incidental, taking in the drama. “You didn’t know him. The stories… the Brotherhood. It’s not what he’s like.”  
  
Kitty gives her a look like she feels sorry for her. But it’s true that she doesn’t know him. John left before she got here. She just doesn’t have the room to judge.  
  
And Bobby’s leading her away while Kitty peels off into her own room in the east corridor.


	2. Right-Side Up

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Chapter rating: T  
> Late Spring/High Summer, Year One

John won’t look at her. 

But that hasn’t stopped her starring. 

She stares at him a lot, but she’s not the only one. His return has set the gossip mill on fire. 

Some people paint him a redemption arc. They say he turned on Magneto at the last second. Bobby’s quick to set those straight, but enough people remember him how he was. An asshole sure, but more a class clown than a villain bent on human genocide.

Others say he died there at Alcatraz, but was brought back to life by some alien force. That he might not even be him anymore, but something else living through his body.

Some still call him a spy, say he’s laying in wait, gathering intel while the Brotherhood recovers its numbers. That one is her least favorite, because it almost makes sense, except that he’s home, and she and Bobby are his family, and he just wouldn’t sink that low. He hadn’t betrayed them as much as left, and he’s allowed to come back. 

She thinks of all the times she’d almost wished she’d gone with him, how his eyes seemed to beg them to before he left the jet that day. Of course, she hadn’t known then that he was defecting, wonders still if he knew it.

No one knows anything for sure, because he doesn’t talk, doesn’t stare back. He comes out of his room for meals, sometimes she sees him out on the grounds with his notebook. He spends most of his time in his room though, behind that closed door he won’t answer. As far as she knows, the only words he’s spoken were to her and Bobby that first night. 

The silence doesn’t help the rumors.

* * *

It's weird that John came back in the same breath that she took the Cure. It's like her whole world is upside-down, or maybe it was upside-down before and it's righting itself. Yeah, that sounds closer to the truth.

The Cure makes her feel like a person in a way she didn't think she'd ever be again. She can feel her hard edges softening like butter.

She kisses her boyfriend. She cuts up her jeans to make the daisy dukes she’s always preferred when summer comes. She goes shopping for tank tops and crop tops, and ties up her button-ups to show off her midriff. She remembers feeling self conscious of her love handles before, but she can’t be bothered about it now. Her body feels like something that belongs to her. If people stare or call her ugly or something- well, she just can’t imagine anything bad coming from all this, from having totally non-lethal skin, from showing it off, letting it brush against people in the hall, letting it hit the air. 

She’s watching Bobby play lacrosse, and a part of her is thrown back to high school, to before. She thinks about how far away that girl is, how she wouldn’t have expected to end up with someone like Bobby, someone shiny and happy who plays team sports. He comes over to her after the game ends, and she gives him a warm smile. She feels warm.  
  
“Don’t you dare change.” She kisses him, open mouthed and sloppy. She’s discovered she likes those kinds of kisses.  
  
He laughs a little breathy, nervous laugh. It’s too public a place for him to be kissing like that. He touches her lightly on the arms to let her know, and she gives him a wide smile that’s all mirth. 

“I probably smell terrible.” He matches her wide smile. 

“I like how you smell.” There’s a melody in her voice that he’s gotten to know well.  
  
He’d never seen her happy like this. She was a gloomier person before, and he loved bringing out a laugh or a smile, making her comfortable enough to relax and feel the moment. She just doesn’t need it anymore. It’s like she’s stuck in the moment, stuck on happy and optimistic. 

Things have been good between them, and he feels guilty sometimes but he pushes the feeling out, because wherever that’s coming from doesn’t matter anymore. 

He’s in the bliss of it, when she disrupts their calm, but just for a second. 

“Don’t you think we should do something for John?”

He lets out a long, tired sigh. She wasn’t there. She hasn’t seen battle. She hasn’t seen who he turned into. He doesn’t know how to make her understand, and looking into those big trusting, happy eyes, he doesn’t want to. He wants to let her enjoy this, because she deserves it. They both do. “If he wants to talk to us, he’ll find us, okay? If he’s keeping away, I think we should let him.”  
  
Something slips across her eyes, but it’s gone before he can register anything specific, and just like that she’s all warmth again, happy and smiling, a balm against everything that’s gone wrong. 

* * *

It’s been a couple of months, and she can’t stand the waiting anymore. When she sees John eating a late lunch by himself in the kitchen, eating a sandwich he probably threw together because it’s good going and gone food, she just sits next to him. She’s not going to let him disappear into himself when she’s been missing him and worrying about him for 3 years.  
  
“Hey.” It’s a singular word, spoken softly, but it falls between them like a rock. He doesn’t turn to look at her at first, but decides to a few moments later. His eyes are dark, and they seem to go on for depths like a chasm. 

He licks his lips, turns away without a word, stares at the sandwich in his hands for a while. 

She touches his shoulder, tries to radiate understanding. “Why don’t I fix up something hot?”  
  
He doesn’t really respond, but doesn’t do anything to stop her when she starts scurrying around the kitchen to turn a heap full of meat and vegetables into a meal for him. 

And just like that, a tradition starts. Everyday, she meets him in the kitchen for a late lunch, fixes something hot and thick that’ll stick to their bones. They don’t talk, but he lets her fuss over him and that’s a beginning if she’s ever seen one. 

A week passes before he says anything to her, and he sounds exactly the same. 

“Does Bobby know you’re here?” 

It’s a gut-punch, but she smiles through it. “No.” She laughs. “Now, eat your okra.”  
  
His nose scrunches as he pushes a few around with his fork, the crust flaking off from the attention. “They’re kind of slimy.” But he dutifully skewers another and pops it in his mouth whole.  
  
The silence sinks in again, but he’s looking at her between bites and seems to want to say something.


	3. Making Harmonies

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Chapter rating: T  
> High Summer/Late Summer, Year One

He forgot how pretty she is. Pretty, beautiful, gorgeous. There aren’t enough words for it. She’s something larger than language.  
  
There’s not a lot left in life he looks forward to now-in-days, but he looks forward to seeing her. 

Her delicate eyebrows. The soft plush of her lips. The white that frames her face. It gives her a distinction that she carries like she was born with it, something wild. She’s untamable, even as human. All her power is in her eyes, the suggestions in the tilt of her mouth.

He starts making it a habit of being around more, just around. He hangs in the main room when he knows people are watching movies, goes to the grounds when the weather’s good and she’ll want to be outside. If it’s just to be near her, then at least he’s starting to feel something again.  
  
He doesn’t know how he feels about her new look, but it doesn’t matter. Nothing’s changed. He’s still whatever he is, something low and earthy, and he used to think she was too, but she’s different now. She radiates joy. 

She’s the sun.

He writes bad poetry about it, about how light hits her skin or how he remembers her smelling, about the swell of her breasts like he’s Lord Byron or some shit. He can almost feel her arms around him like a phantom. If he thinks about it too hard, it burns, and that’s something that feels comfortable and familiar. 

The line of her jaw. Her collarbone. He feels warm.

* * *

“Why don’t you talk anymore?” Her voice falls like silk. 

“Why doesn’t Bobby know you’re here?” He reacts before he’s even processed her words consciously, feels a bloom of heat when his own words hit him. He can feel his eyes harden, and he thinks she deserves it. Why not?  
  
She opens her mouth to talk a few times. Her breathing gets a little harder. She licks her lips. She busies her hands with silverware. She does anything but speak. 

Part of him feels glad for it, and he’s not sure why, but it feels good, and it _feels_ and thats something too.

“Bobby’s been weird since Alcatraz.” Her voice is small, her body seems to be folding in on itself. “I mean, he’s still Bobby, but he gets serious now sometimes and I think you remind him of all that. He doesn’t like to think about it.”

He starts to feel guilty, but there’s something electric in the air that makes him nervous. 

“Is that why you don’t talk anymore?” Her eyes are wide, her lips a nervous line.  
  
Is that what she thinks, that the horrors of war broke him, like Bobby ever could. He rolls his eyes hard. “So I’m like you’re dirty little secret.” His voice has that melodic quality to it that he always used when he flirted with her in front of Bobby, a sing-songiness that says the words aren’t serious, just a joke. “No one knows, right?” 

She smirks, and her shoulders pull back a little. She gives a little shimmy subconsciously. There’s something so sexy about her right now that he knows he’ll be replaying the moment for the rest of the week. “You want people to know?”  
  
_Yeah_. “Maybe.”  
  
“If people find out we’re hanging out, they’re going to start inviting you to stuff. Someone _else_ might want to _talk_ _to you._ ” She’s teasing him. The melody is delicious.  
  
“Don’t want to share me?” He feels the words as a prick on every bit of surface on his body. He licks his lips. For all effort at restraint, his want for his spills outs in sloshes. He’s overfilled.  
  
She winks at him. By god he’s never forgetting this moment. 

He feels hot. It feels amazing, until he wonders briefly if he’s blushing. Oh, he better not be blushing. But if he is, she’s not reacting, and god does this moment feel good.  
  
“Bobby won’t like it.” Her voice shifts a little, but there’s still a melody to it.  
  
“Is that how you make your decisions, just figure out what Bobby does and doesn’t like?” He means it to keep the teasing going, but her smile falters a little, just for a few seconds. Those seconds feel long.  
  
“No. But, he’s still my boyfriend.” Her drawl is thicker on the sentence.

He nods. “I remember.” _Trust me, I remember._  
  
“What happened out there anyway?” She says it slowly, like if she tip-toes it into conversation she won’t spook him. 

But she’s wrong. He doesn’t mind talking about it. He can almost feel his power coursing through him, lighting cars aflame, throwing his all against his natural opposite. “The _Iceman_ kicked my ass is what happened.” He laughs.  
  
Her smile is so wide, so bright, he looks away instinctly. Her laugh joins his like a harmony. 

* * *

She starts coming by his room at odd hours. He gets into the habit of signaling to her that he’s heading back when they catch each other in public and he’s gotten tired of watching her stand by her boyfriend like an accessory. 

She asks a lot of questions about his Brotherhood days. She seems to like the stories, and he tries to skirt around the parts where he actually kills people. She doesn’t need those details, he figures. Though, he’s not sure she’ll mind. She has to know, and yet she listens eagerly like they’re just another imagined story in his notebook. Maybe she doesn’t judge him about it. Maybe now that she isn’t a mutant anymore, she doesn’t feel the need to pick sides.  
  
She likes to lay on the ground and close her eyes sometimes, and he gets to trail her body with an unabashed gaze. She wears so little now-in-days that he can pretty much figure out the rest. She has bruises littering her knees, arms, legs. He has the slope of her waist about memorized, the dip of her belly button, the shape of her thighs. Summers almost over, _thank god_ because he can’t stop thinking about tracing from the inside of her knee up, _up and up_ , with his tongue. Clothes, actual clothes, should help him with that. 

He closes his eyes like he can banish the thoughts away, because he really shouldn’t be thinking about her like that.

“Have you told anyone about us yet?”  
  
She plays coy, forms a smirk and keeps her eyes shut. God, he loves that smirk. The mischievous tilt, the thinning. It’s almost a mimic of his. He’ll take anything that lumps them together, like they’re the same. “About us?”  
  
_Us._ Because yeah, there’s something here that’s not just friendly. “I’m starting to feel like your mistress.”  
  
She snorts at that. There’s a squeeze in his chest he has to push through.  
  
“Seriously, I feel cheap.” The melody is back in his voice, and he realizes it’s second nature. He’s trying to be serious, but he can’t help downplay his feelings for her comfort.  
  
Her eyes open. Her head lulls to the side. The smile on her lips is loose. She reaches a hand out into the air for him, and he takes it before he realizes what’s happening. “I think that makes you my mister.” 

_Skin, skin, skin._ “Is that better?” He’s trying to keep his thoughts straight, but touching her is overwhelming him. He still can’t believe he even can, and not just because he’s him and she’s her. Her powers not being a natural obstacle is a bit of a sore thought, and sometimes he forgets.  
  
“It’s more masculine.”  
  
“Rogue…” And there it is, no melody, no bullshit, just a plea from deep in his throat, coarse like a croak.  
  
She falls silent, turns her eyes onto the ceiling, but he feels her grip tighten on his hand, and he squeezes it back in reflex. “Why’d you come back?”

He considers his answer for a while. Now, she’s finally landed on it, the thing he actually doesn’t want to talk about. “Would you believe me if I said it was for you?” He settles on flirting, something flashy to distract her, something thick she’ll laugh at like a joke.  
  
“No.” The melody is beautiful out of her mouth. She snatches her hand back. 

The silence is comfortable when it slips in, and he lays down on the floor next to her. He listens to her breathing, lets the rhythm calm him, starts becoming aware of his own heartbeat.  
  
“Tell me another story.” 

_Gladly_. He recounts his glory days. 


	4. Secrets

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Chapter rating: T  
> Late Summer/Early Fall, Year One

"Hi."

John's startled by the high pitched voice. _What's that, pep?_ Happy people always throw him off. Kitty is just standing there, like a line of confidence, and he realizes he's not getting out of this. He recognizes her from when he first arrived. She's Bobby and Rogue's new third. Thinks he might have seen her standing next to Bobby on the battlefield. "Hi." The syllable already feels like a consolation.

"What's your story?" Kitty tilts her head, and he realizes she's actually kind of pretty. He didn't notice it before.

"What've you heard?"

She smiles. "Oh! Lots of things!" She starts talking a mile a minute. She cycles through so many rumors, he feels like he should be writing it all down.

He realizes that this place has changed, that there are more new people here than people who would actually remember him. "So, basically I'm evil?"

"And dangerous." She confirms it like it's the silliest idea in the world, and he wonders if she got that from Rogue, but then she asks "are you?" with a dip in pitch, and he realizes that she figures if he is dangerous, he's not going to attack her in the middle of the grounds with all these people around.

He takes a hard breath. "Have been."

"But not anymore?"

He sighs. He's done with this conversation.

"I mean, you're not with the Brotherhood anymore, huh. You could be out there recruiting new people, but you're here."

He thinks briefly about going mute again, but she keeps barreling through his silences so he's not sure it would work.

"A lot of the Brotherhood died out there. Jean basically made everyone evaporate."

"Yeah, pretty much." The annoyance in his voice comes out like a sharpening at the end of the sentence. He feels a little bad when she winces.

"Okay, okay." She puts her hands in the air in mock surrender. "You want to be the weird guy that sulks alone for months on end and doesn't talk to anyone? I'm not going to stop you." She smiles like it's a joke, but she punctuates the moment by leaving.

* * *

Rogue takes one look at him and makes a joke about a sour mood needing some good downhome cheer, and kisses his cheek. She makes chicken and dumplings, says it's the perfect cure to the chill coming in the air, tells him that it isn't as good as her momma's but that it still makes her feel like she's home again, something about the smell and texture. He's quiet, and she all but takes him to his room by his hand after she's done with the dishes.

They play slap jack, and he wonders if she's just looking for an excuse for them to touch, and wonders if it's just because she can touch and likes to. Her hand is always slow on the withdrawal.

She lays out on the floor like she likes to do in a fit of laughter when they've played too many rounds, and he memorizes her lines with his eyes like he's in the habit of doing now.

He doesn't know how much longer he can stand being a secret, but he doesn't want to push her to tell anyone before she's ready either.

He watches the rise and fall of her chest, watches her stomach dip, dip, dip, and expand with her deep breaths through the thin fabric of her t-shirt. He hovers over her, watches as she keeps her eyes closed, hovers his hand just above her, wanting to touch her, wonders if she can feel the body heat radiating off of him. He feels hot. He feels a little invincible.

He places his hand on her experimentally, looks to her face and her eyes are still closed, but tighter now like she's determined not to react. He lifts up her shirt a little, exposes the soft skin of her stomach that he's gotten used to seeing. He caresses her skin a little with his thumb, and watches her skin, sink underneath his touch. He turns back to her when she audibly exhales, and her mouth is just open. She licks her lips. He traces the slope of her waist with just his fingertips, and she arches into his touch a little. He walks his hand up the valley between her breasts, traces fingertips up her neck and she stretches it, lulls her head back. Her breaths are harder, loud enough to prick up his senses. He traces her chin with his thumb, watches the quiver of her lips, wants badly to kiss her. He realizes in that moment that she would let him, that someday he will.

He can feel the moment coil deep inside his body. He's no virgin, figures she isn't anymore either, but he can't remember wanting feeling this good since before, when he'd manage to pull her attention away from Bobby for ten fucking seconds and for a moment she would be all his.

He realizes that in smaller ways, she's been his for a long time, and he pulls his hand from her body and it shakes a little from the effort.

"You haven't even told that peppy one?" His voice is thin from want, but it'll do to bring them back to equilibrium.

She opens her eyes, closes her mouth, gives him a look of amused confusion.

"Short, brunette, was probably a cheerleader once."

She rolls her eyes. "I think you mean Kitty."

"Well?"

"Well, Kitty isn't my friend. She's Bobby's. Last person I'd tell my secrets to."

He laughs, and it's deep and guttural. "Who do you tell, then?"

She laughs back, and it's like the sway of a wind chime. "You, obviously."

* * *

Kitty starts hanging around him more, and he watches Rogue notice, but she refuses to react. Still, her expression tenses, and he wants to think she's feeling a little jealous, but who knows.

"So, you guys were all friends once, huh?" Kitty points over to where Rogue and Bobby are playing foosball, acknowledges that he was staring because she won't let him get away with anything. He kind of respects that.

"Aren't you friends with them?" He figures he can be straight back to her. "Why are you hanging around me?"

She shrugs, like it's no big deal, like Bobby's been able to take his eyes off them anytime she comes over to him. "I'm curious, I guess. You're supposedly this totally scary, dangerous guy, but it's kind of hard to imagine when all you do is sit around writing in a notebook."

He can't help but laugh a little.

"I bet you're like Mr. Logan, a big misunderstood teddy bear."

And it's the laugh, the camaraderie that's forming between Kitty and him, the way that Rogue touches Bobby's arm like she's worried about him, that finally sets Bobby off.

John's been here for months, and his ex-best friend hasn't acknowledged him once since that first day. He always thought the other man's powers were ironic, because who's sunnier and warmer than Bobby fucking Drake, but now he knows better. No one can turn a cold shoulder as quickly or effectively than Iceman.

"Leave Kitty alone."

An angry tilt takes over John's mouth. "Oh, she's here by her own choice." John gets up from the couch, meets Bobby chest-to-chest to show him he doesn't care that he's taller now, that he's beat him before. "Can't get rid of her, honestly."

Kitty scoffs in the background, but he's an asshole and she might as well learn that now.

"It's not my fault you leave your women unsatisfied." And hey, maybe it's immature, maybe it's a low blow, maybe he wants Bobby to realize that he's been hanging out with his girlfriend under his nose for months, who he can hear saying his name in a low, warning groan, and maybe, he just wants to punch the guy but knows Rogue won't forgive him unless Bobby punches first.

And Bobby does.

It's been a long time since he's been in a proper fist fight, but he remembers the steps, the angles. He gets the upper hand on Bobby fast, like he always has, because he was born and bred in violence and in dangerous spaces, and Bobby's from the suburbs. But Bobby's learned to take a beating, and so things are more even then they used to be.

Still, Bobby does what Bobby always does, and he ices up his fist to land a harder blow, and it sinks in John's flesh with tearing. He just hits the ground and groans. One more thing he's fucking lost, his skin is thinner now like all humans are made weak, but no, he's not out, not until he's unconscious, and he starts to get up, ignores the pain in his side, focuses on the burning that comes with a fresh wound, but Rogue's in front of him before he can get back into it, and she's touching his good side with an open palm, and he can't hear a word she's saying over the ringing in his ears, but whatever it is makes Bobby stand down. They argue for a while, but he can tell Rogue's winning, and finally he starts to hear her voice lap in like waves crashing into the shore.

"Honestly, he's our friend. Did you really think I was going to let him come home and be alone for months?" Rogue is furious, the white stripe in her hair keeps falling into her face and she has to flick it out with a turn of her head. She seems taller when she's angry, and she seems powerful. He can almost imagine that she's fully intact, except that she lifts his shirt with bare hands to check out his wound. He grabs the hem from her hands to take it the rest of the way, over his head and past his arms, and she paws at his different bruises, checks his ribs, like she's seen as much of him as he has of her, just casually.

Kitty is saying something to calm Bobby down, and he leans into her a little, just a little and they're not touching, and John realizes exactly what Kitty is to him. She's not just a hanger-on. She's not an affair. Hell, he doubts they've so much as kissed. No, Kitty is Bobby's the way Rogue is his, which is to say technically _not_ , but relationships aren't built on technicalities. Bobby doesn't understand that, because he's upstanding and he's pretty sure Kitty is too, but Rogue's not, and that's how John knows that Rogue hasn't figured it out yet. She's too happy about being cured, about kissing her boyfriend with tongue, about doing whatever it is they do in private, to see what's been happening in front of her face.

And Bobby didn't notice they were hanging out, didn't discover her secret, because he was too distracted with his own.

Rogue grabs his arm and drags him off to her own room. He's never seen her room before, not this one, where she's in a single like they all are now. It's floral. She's got a floral bedspread, and embroidery hanging on the wall: lavender and roses and daisies. She's put up white cotton curtains with a scalloped edge and lace detailing that he's pretty sure she made herself, and he can't get over how girly it all is. He laughs, and it hurts, but he just laughs more because what does a little pain mean to him anyway.

She brings over a washcloth, and busies herself cleaning the tears in his side, rubs neosporin on them, carefully bandages him up, uses butterfly bandages where she tells him to get checked out for stitches. He realizes why her skin is so clean, so unmarked when he knows she's had it as rough as he has at times. She's careful with her own body, like she is with his now. She makes sure swelling passes and scars don't form. He starts to feel embarrassed about all the marks he has cutting lines over his own body, slashes and spider webs, cracks from being hit and stabbed and being too lazy to do anything other than wash the blood off with soap.

"Are you mad?" He surprises himself by how soft the words land.

"Not at you." She fusses around his bruises some, traces around them with soft fingertips, pushes gently into his ribs with her thumbs again. "We're lucky he didn't break any bones." Eye contact, and his breath catches. "Thank you for not… you know, escalating things with your powers. I know it must have been hard to hold back."

And there it is again, and he knows his eyes can't lie to her, that they're flitting a little in panic because she's so close to figuring it out and he honestly can't believe she hasn't yet, because he would never in a million years hold back.

"I'm really glad you came home." And she hugs him, delicately, and her hair smells like roses and her skin smells like chamomile, and he holds her firmly against him with a hand on the small of her back, and the fabric is less than air against his palm.

"I should go." Because he has to before this moment turns, before she sees him for real. She turns her face into the crook of his neck, he can feel the soft skin of her lips brush against him, and he scrambles for an excuse she'll buy. "Need to ice my bruises, you know."

She pulls back, and there's want in her eyes but she's still with Bobby, and she might not be as shiny as Bobby or Kitty, but she's still clean, cleaner than him. "Okay." She draws her hands down his arms slowly, watches their trajectory, falls back a little like touching him has burned her. "I think your shirt's still down in the rec room too."

He offers her a lazy smile, looks her up and down like she's not watching him do it, and he pushes himself through the doorway and down the hall and away from her.


	5. The Stolen Days

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Chapter rating: T  
> Early Fall, Year One

She thinks for a while that everything will go back to normal now that Bobby and John have had it out. There's nothing like a fist fight to settle things between men. She'd seen it growing up, and saw it between them enough times. John had a way of pissing everyone off, after all. He liked to piss people off.

But, shockingly, that's not what happens. Things don't go back to how they were.

Things between Bobby and her have become… strained. It's like they're going through the motions of being together, but it's harder now. She has to remind herself to listen when he talks, hesitates before telling him the little thoughts that roll through her mind. She finds herself relieved when goes off on a mission that takes him away for a while. She thinks it'll make her lonely, because John hasn't been meeting her for his lunch for days, and John's her only other regular company. But, being out of the drama for a while is… nice, refreshing.

Still, after a few days of enjoying the cool air against the skin of her face, she misses him. She avoids it all day long, because if he wanted to see her he would, and it gets harder at night, and she's weighed by the guilt that she's thinking of him instead of Bobby. She's sure it doesn't mean anything, it's just some latent confusion from when she first met them and thought John was maybe a little into her. It was so stupid. She didn't realize at first that he was just a flirt, and just liked teasing Bobby and probably her too. And besides, sometimes these things happen in relationships. Even if she did want him in some earnest way, which she _doesn't_ , then it would still pass. Sometimes people get confused when things get rocky, and then it passes, like Bobby did with Kitty. She's just mad at Bobby for how he's treated John, and Bobby's mad at her for keeping the secret, and they're allowed to be mad at each other and still love one another. And she's allowed to care about their old friend, because she'll always care about John one way or the other, and it's Bobby who's in the wrong for not remembering to do that.

And a week passes, and Kitty's in a particularly sunny mood, and Rogue knows Bobby must have told her that he expects to be coming back soon, because _they're_ not fighting, and she gets a text later that confirms it. There's a catch in her throat, and she suddenly feels the need to see John even stronger than before. She waits for him in the kitchen for an hour, even knowing he probably won't come, and later she's in a fit when she tries to sleep. She can't. And it's in anger that she finally gives in, gives up fighting it, and goes to his room.

She knocks, and he doesn't answer at first, but she doesn't want to knock too loud because Kitty's room isn't that far away and she'd tell Bobby everything, and they have enough problems as it is.

So she knocks, quietly but steadily, and for a while, and finally he opens the door.

He looks disheveled, and she realizes he was asleep, and she feels guilty but she's also really mad at him, though now that she's standing in front of him she can't exactly remember why. Without an explanation for why she's there, she just pushes past him into his room, and she's hit by how bare it is.

She turns like something sharp. "Aren't you ever going to decorate?"

He chuckles, shakes his head. He looks tired, and maybe not just sleepy. "Maybe it needs a woman's touch, sure." He sits on his bed, and she realizes he sleeps in a shirt and sweatpants, and something about seeing him fully clothed in something he'd wear during the day is funny to her.

Then she remembers that she doesn't sleep in the kind of thing she'd wear in the day, and maybe he's seen her bare more skin than this, but her nightgowns are _private_. But then again, he's seen her like this before too. And yet, that was a long time ago, and she thinks it shouldn't count because she has more of a body now then she did then, and surely it looks different to see her like this now. But, she hadn't been thinking when she left. Suddenly, everything is crisp and clear, like time slowed down.

"Bobby's coming back soon."

Another chuckle. "I hadn't realized he left."

"Because you haven't been leaving your room."

The skin at the edges of his eyes wrinkle and his smirk is so wide. "Been busy."

"Avoiding me?"

"Is that why you're here?"

 _Yes._ "No."

He runs his hands through his hair. She likes that he keeps it longish, likes to watch his finger work through the lengths. She wants to crawl into his bed, ask him to hold her, fall asleep in his arms. The urge scares her, but she pushes it down, adds it onto the list of confusing thoughts she's had lately.

"We've been having lunch everyday for months, and all of the sudden, you just leave me waiting there."

"You've been waiting?" He acts like the thought hadn't occurred to him.

"Well, why shouldn't I?"

"It's just lunch, Marie."

It's been a long time since anyone's called her that, and it's like a burn and a balm at the same time as her birth name falls from his lips casually like that. It's one more confusing thing. "I thought you'd be happy. Bobby knows we're friends again, and you guys threw a few punches. Everything can go back to normal."

"Is that what's going to happen? Everything's going to be the way it was?" He sounds far away.

"Isn't that what you want?"

 _No._ "No." The word is long, weighty. "Maybe." _Some parts._

Rogue wants it, though, all of it. She wants them all, the three of them, to be friends again, and for things to be right again between her and Bobby. She wants things to be easy between her and John again too.

She looks at him, and it hits her how much she's missed him this week, and she feels the weight of having missed him for 3 years, and she doesn't feel ready to leave, but she can't come up with an excuse to stay either. So she just looks at him, and he looks back at her.

The moment is soft.

"Just, be there for lunch tomorrow." She's relieved at his nod. "And maybe try to be nicer to Bobby."

He pauses, brushes his fingers through his hair again. "It's not easy for me, being nice to Bobby."

 _Why?_ "Because of whatever the hell happened at Alcatraz?"

 _Yes and no._ His eyes burrow into her, and she shakes her head and runs her own hands through her hair now, and he smiles a little at her mirroring him. He gets up, touches her bare arms with his bare hands.

She's gotten so used to it so quickly, being touched, but something about his touching her makes her aware of it again, skin-on-skin, the way she always had to be before.

"You'll get used to it, things being different. Hell, maybe we'll look up one day and it'll be better than it was before."

"Is that Brotherhood wisdom?"

He laughs, a small tired laugh. "Probably the stray thoughts of a street kid."

She nods. "It helps you move forward." And she's almost impressed at how quickly she's forgotten that kind of hard won knowledge that she needed once just to survive.

"Instead of trying to find the nearest bridge."

She can't help herself. She hugs him, and she enjoys the pressure of his arms wrapping around her, holding her body tight against his, but too soon he's drawing them back away. She has to push herself away from him by the force of her hands on his hips. She feels like she's trying to walk through water, like the world has a current she's fighting against. "Everything is going to be good again."

He nods, walks her to the door. "I'll see you tomorrow. It's late."

* * *

He does show up the next day, but he's quiet and far away, and hard. All the tenderness of the night before is gone, and she wants to know why but something keeps stopping her just before she forms the words to ask.

It wouldn't do any good anyway. John only shares exactly what he wants to, and she's known him long enough to know that.


	6. Cured

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Early Fall, Year One   
> Chapter rating: T

Bobby loves her. He doesn't agree with all her decisions, but he loves her, and he's happy about anything that makes her happy. That's what it means to love someone.

Which is why he's so conflicted about everything having to do with John, or Pyro, or whoever that is.

But John's keeping his distance now, he's pretty sure, and he's having dinner with his girlfriend and best friend, and later he's taking Rogue to the arboretum, because she likes to sneak in at night when it's dark and empty and look at the early leaves changing color without having to share them with everyone else, and it makes her smile at him in a way that reminds him of why he loves her so much.

She seems off today too, which makes the whole plan that much more important. He thinks she's probably still mad at him, but today he's a hero and everything's going to be fine. And so he plays with the white stripe in her hair, the way she loves for him to do in private, and he knows they're not in private and he probably shouldn't, but he really wants to feel close to her and he knows she likes it when they're public like this.

It gets her attention, and she gives him a soft smile that seems genuine, and it feels like a bridge starting to form. She grabs his hand, brings it to her lips, and there's love in her eyes and he knows it's reflecting back at her in his, and everything is better, and then she seems thoughtful, and then-

"Don't you think you could do something for John?"

He can't believe what he's hearing except that he can. She's stuck on this. He can't get her past it, and he knows she's just being nice, but he doesn't really trust him anymore, can't see past what he knows about Pyro, doesn't really want to be that guy's friend, doesn't really want Rogue to be his friend either. He gives her a grimace, because he needs her to understand this.

"Come on, if things were really that bad between you, he'd have thrown some fire at you. You know that he would have. I think he misses you, how things used to be." She's talking out of her ass a little, he thinks, but there's something else in the sentence that makes him pause. Because he remembers the moment. He remembers being ready for fire and watching John crumble to the ground instead.

He doesn't know how she's missed it. He doesn't want to be the one to tell her.

He locks eyes with Kitty for a second, and sees that she's figured it out too. Of course, she was there at Alcatraz. Rogue wasn't.

He turns his attention back to his girlfriend, his sweet girlfriend with her wide, hopeful, and kind eyes. He holds her hand, gently soothes the skin by caressing her with his thumb.

"Rogue…" He's hesitant, but he has to. "Rogue, there were Cure guns at Alcatraz."

Her face is slow to react, but it does. She frowns, a little, then hard, then her expressions slacks. "You think he's cured."

 _Yeah._ "I think it's worth considering."

"You really think that's more likely than... that he was just... being nice?" Her voice is sharp, like she's mad at him. Of course she is.

 _Yeah._ "I don't know. You could ask him." He leans over, kisses her forehead. "Let's not worry about it. Let's just focus on us tonight."

They lock eyes, and he thinks hers look a little wet, and she nods. "That sounds really nice."

Kitty coughs a little, and yeah, maybe that was too public. Kitty doesn't like being incidental.

* * *

Rogue decides she's not going to ask John about it, but he's still quiet and hard anyway, and she thinks about everything, thinks about how he's back here with them at all, and she thinks Bobby might be right.

So she plays the quiet game with him, and the only sound between them is the clink of silverware, and the air is tense, and she lets it be tense because her whole body sitting next to his is tense.

And then he's watching her with those smoky blue eyes of his that carry depths. She ignores it, but she can feel the weight. It feels heavy, and she feels it everywhere.

He breaks their silence after a while, a long while of just staring at her. "Why do you still go by Rogue?"

"What do you mean? You've called me Marie a thousand times." In the before, of course, because now it's a gift when he looks at her. And _that_ night too, but that night doesn't feel like a tangible thing that really happened, except that he's here again and so it had to have happened.

"No, really." He's insistent. He's never had much patience for talking around things. She's always liked that about him, except right now she doesn't.

Her eyes dart away while she considers if she wants to answer the question, but she knows John. He's aimed at her point-blank. He won't let it go. "I feel like a part of me stopped being Marie the moment I realized he wasn't going to wake up, the poor sod of a boy… from a first kiss." She scoffs. The air curdles. "I ran away from home, got a moniker, called it."

"But you're cured now. You're Marie."

"No, I'm not." Her mouth is twisted and her accent is thick. "The Cure didn't erase the last 6 years of my life." She wrings her hands, notices him notice. It makes her shy for some reason, and she stops. "All it did was make it so I'm not dangerous anymore. I'm still the same." Her voice is quiet, conspiratorial. She doesn't like to talk about herself, to share things. He knows that.

The whole moment feels like something stolen, impossible. He feels like he's a man standing on a landmine in the moment before it blows. "You think you're not dangerous anymore?"

The question is more a challenge than anything else, and suddenly she's not sure what they're talking about. It makes her unfathomably angry. "Isn't that your whole thing?" She shouldn't say it, but she feels naked and she wants him to feel naked too, and things are starting to feel like unreality again, and he's just such a fucking asshole. "You feel neutered," _Stop, stop, stop._ "because you're cured." She draws out the last word.

He realizes that he's done something to piss her off, because she's mocking him right where it hurts. "Fuck you." He can't stand the air hitting his raw places. He feels embarrassment like a swelling, like an angry welt. He just gets up and leaves. It's the kindest of his instincts, but she doesn't see it that way.

She releases a high pitched grunt of frustration. She's not sure she can get used to it, his new tendency to come in and out of her life with all the speed and grace of a bullet.

It wasn't fair, getting to the truth like that, but none of any of this is fair either. She wonders briefly when she'll get to see him next, and the anger coils in her gut, and she thinks she wouldn't want to anyway.

Because, is that really the only reason he came back here, because he got cured and had nowhere else to go?


	7. The Stolen Night

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Chapter rating: E  
> Mid-Fall, Year One

There's no John for a long time. Weeks pass and she feels her anger ebb into just missing him, and then guilt too. She hates guilt. It curls back into rage.

When she starts waiting for him for lunch again, she's not surprised when he's not there, day after day the way she hasn't been. So she tries him room one night, and nothing, no answer.

She tries during the day. Zilch, nada.

Another week passes, and she just doesn't care anymore. Sure, she shouldn't have said what she said but she doesn't deserve this either, and frankly, Bobby called her withdrawn the other day and Kitty agreed, so she's pretty sure her social life can't keep this fight between them up anymore.

She goes at his doorknob with a lock pick, doesn't care what she finds on the other side, wouldn't half mind it if he blew up at her for the invasion of privacy. The pieces slip in her hands a bit, the movements aren't really natural anymore, but her body remembers the steps after a few tries, and the lock gives.

The emptiness is like a chill that runs from deep inside her out through her pores.

She considers it for a while, and she gets pissed again, and then she gets serious and kind of sad, because she gets what running off means, has done it enough times herself, and realizes that when she started this fight she pushed him away from the only friend he has here.

She wants to crawl into his bed and wait for him, but it feels wrong. It is for a number of reasons, including that it's just insane, but she does it anyway.

* * *

She's almost surprised when he wakes her up at 4 in the morning. He smells like cigarette smoke and cheap beer. When her eyes focus, she realizes he looks like it too.

"What're you doing?" He seems angry, and that's good because she's still angry.

Except she's deflating at the sight of him. Her mouth just gapes.

He sighs, and she realizes that he's deflating too, _thank god_. "Move aside. I've had a long night."

And she's scooching over before she's thought it through, and he's there all the sudden, and his body is warm against the nip of the winter night seeping through the walls, and another smell joins in now that he's so close, something just John. Her nose is almost touching the nape of his neck in these close quarters, and before she can process what's happening, the warmth and smell of him lull her back to sleep.

* * *

It would have been so easy, and in her dreams, it is. She kisses his neck, and he kisses her mouth. They are soft, teasing kisses. He sucks softly on her bottom lip, kisses her with tongue, lets his hands wander up and down her sides, cup her breasts, stroke her nipples enough that they peak, and she feels the warmth puddle between her legs.

Her own hands try to undress him, lift his shirt up as high as it will go without his cooperation, traces the lines of the muscles of his chest, his abs, unbuttons and unzips his jeans to push them down a little, to trace his hip bone. She pauses when she feels the downy hair that trails down, wants to follow it.

He repositions them so that he's on top of her, so that she can feel him right where she needs him through the soft fabric. He's hard and she's wanting.

She's getting lost in those grey-blue eyes of his. He's breathing hard through his mouth, he pushes her nightgown up to her waist and she locks her thumbs into the space between his boxers and skin. He breaks eye contact to stare at her mouth and she pushes his boxers down with his jeans, and his hands meet hers to help, and then to push her panties to the side. She has to grab his hand to stop him entering her with his fingers, holds it between her breasts. She pushes her hips up, follows the length of him with her cunt, aches to have him inside her.

* * *

When she wakes up, it's almost noon, and she's way past late to meet Bobby because they always have breakfast together. It's the consolation they landed on because she's not comfortable sharing a bed with him yet, even after she got cured and they started having sex, and she doesn't want to think about the implications of that now that she's waking up with John's arms around her, about whatever the hell that was in her dreams, so she's just not going to.

She's just going to file this moment away as something private and other, because the weight and warmth of his body on hers is… nice actually. She's kind of disgusted with herself that she thinks he smells good when he also smells like a bar. But, the smell suits him somehow, and he's musky too, by his own right, and she can't help that she likes it, that she always has. She stopped beating herself up about that a long time ago.

Still, she's not sure she wants him to wake up with their bodies like this, with his arms holding her close and their legs intertwined, and the sheets all askew.

But, she kind of does too, just to see what he thinks of it all, and that thought is pushed away as quickly as it lands.

This is bad.

She carefully removes herself. She's surprised by how graceful her body is when she needs it to be. She's almost out when he starts to stir and she flies into a panic, throws herself out of his bed like one of those prey animals that's been caught off guard, but he just grumbles and rolls over.

Her breathing is hard and she can hear her own heartbeat.

She's in last night's nightgown, and John's well, he's kind of beautiful actually. His face is… calm, soft. For the first time in a long time, she's looking at him and can feel how much they're the same age.

But, she has to go before he wakes up and she has to find Bobby anyway, to explain, and so she just leaves the moment behind the closed door when she shuts it on her way out.

* * *

She figures she has time to shower since it's technically lunch now, and she meets Bobby in his room after, texts him that she wants to talk. She doesn't give the wording two thoughts until he's in front of her looking like he's ready for a long argument but gets confused when she starts apologizing. _Oops_. But it works out because he's so happy they aren't breaking up that he forgets to be suspicious that she blew him off for their standing date that she has never missed once.


	8. One Man Riot

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Chapter rating: T  
> Mid-Fall/Late Fall, Year One

He's a little worried about how it's going to go, because he's not a mutant and this is a mutant bar, but everyone here knows him, and hell, maybe there's something he's still good for.

Who knows, maybe they'll kill him, but he doesn't care anymore. His body has been vibrating with need of action for months, and her words were like a flint against gun powder.

He's surprised when he gets there and he's greeted like a returned hero, and he feels like a retired general pulling his uniform out from storage.

People buy him drinks, catch him up, teach him the new rallying cries. No one asks where he's been, but every once in a while someone else walks in and he hears again that everyone thought he was dead.

It feels like coming back to life, but also like a glass of water after wandering in the desert, and he's exhausted after a while even though this is better than he thought he'd ever get to feel again.

He tries to call it a night a few times, but people aren't letting him get away with it. The night is a whirlwind, and it's a later night then they're used to too, but people are genuinely really happy to see him, and he gets the sense that they're afraid they won't again. So he assures them that he'll be back, and a few of the guys let him go after a few hush-hush conversations that are work, and that's a relief too.

And so when he gets back and finds his door unlocked and Rogue just passed out in his bed like she belongs there, it doesn't even feel like a fever dream, because he's pretty sure the entire night is proof that maybe god does really exist, and maybe the guy likes him.

So he calls her name, and nothing, and he tries shaking her a little, gentle on her skin, and he learns that the girl could sleep through an earthquake which pisses him off because it means she's gone soft, and he maybe shoves her a little too hard, but it does the trick.

Her hair is a mess, and her skin looks… soft, and she just looks really fragile and innocent with her eyelids fluttering open, but she's neither. She's the girl that broke into his room in the middle of the night, and everything else is just wrapping paper.

"What're you doing?"

She just gapes at him, and she's really fucking pretty, and he decides quickly that he's just too tired to do this, and he doesn't care that they're technically still in a fight. So he practically pushes her out of the way to make room in his own bed, because god he just wants to sleep actually.

But he can't, because he can feel her breath on the back of his neck, and he can almost imagine her big eyes and soft lips, and it makes him want to do things he can't do to her, even if she's apparently sleeping in his bed tonight. And he thinks, yeah, if there is a god, he's a piece of shit.

Mercifully, he hears, feels her breath steady, and he knows that she's asleep, and while he can't stop being hyper aware of her body, it relaxes him that she's not mentally there enough to figure out what he's thinking right now. And he listens to the steadiness of her breathing, can feel the warmth of her body as she unconsciously nudges against him like she's trying to fit her body into his, and he thinks vaguely about praying actually, before finally falling asleep.

* * *

He's not surprised when he doesn't see her for a while. Coming and going has always been her style, and far be it for him to ask her to change when he's probably in love with her. Fuck.

He has plenty else going on now, and that's a good distraction from not getting what he wants from her.

But still, the days start to drag, and he's in the rec room one afternoon and sees her sucking face with her boyfriend, and for some reason it pisses him off more than makes him sick. So he tosses a throw pillow at them, says "Get a room" and instantly regrets it because that's exactly what they do. And like clockwork, she's at his door the next day for lunch and drags him to the kitchen like she can just make that a thing again.

And he sits there feeling like an idiot while she cooks, because it turns out that she kind of can. Still, he's smouldering.

She sets down what she calls 'meat and three', but it looks a lot like chicken and vegetables.

And then talks. "So, you're cured?"

And he can't believe that she's going there. He just shakes his head, considers her a while, and maybe she's still angry too because her eyes are kind of hard. So, he pivots. "You too." He pops the last word. "For Bobby, right? Is sex everything you thought it'd be?"

Her face actually turns red. He's never seen her this angry before.

"You are so off-base."

He takes it the wrong way on purpose. "Then he must not be doing it right."

"Take that back."

But he's not done. "Bobby lacks a certain amount of creativity. It's not his fault. Now, me?" He lets the words sit there for a second, leans forward. "I wouldn't have had to ask you to get 'cured'."

She flinches hard, throws her body away from his like she can't get away fast enough. Her voice is deadly steady. "Bobby didn't ask me to either."

"Then why'd you do it?"

"You know, not all of us control fire." And he realizes that she's forgotten for a second, and it feels good. And then, "Sorry." Except she's not. He can tell, because her eyes get a little red when she's angry and because her posture is still all fight.

"I'm not the one you have to apologize to. Find a mirror. You chose to be weaker."

"I chose to be the kind of girl who can touch her own boyfriend." Her hard edges are coming back, and she feels like her again, more her than the soft creature she's been playing at for months. "You got something more to say about that?" She brings her body practically against him, and he knows that she's doing it out of fight, but there's something else in the undercurrent too, want and wanting.

He looks at her lips, brings his hand to cup her cheek without thinking and stops himself just before their skin touches, and it's just hovering there the way his mouth is just hovering over hers, and she hasn't backed down and she's got a cocky tilt to her chin, and he could almost kiss her except that he can't and he won't. His hand drops to his side. "It's fucking disgusting."

And maybe the words are too harsh, and maybe he doesn't mean them, but he's pretty sure he does, actually. And yeah, there's no god here, because if there was, she'd have never done it and he'd still be powered.

And whatever he feels about her is complicated by everything else he feels about everything else. And he's feeling a lot and it's a lot fucking better than feeling nothing like he's been for a while now.

Her lips fall into a deep frown, but her eyes are still hard and her body is still right there. And he doesn't care if she technically wins this one by the count of who cries uncle, because he's gotten all his punches in, and so he storms out of there with all the force of an explosion and the feeling of smoke in his lungs.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: "I've spoken to God so rarely, I do not think he would know who I was." - The Tutors


	9. Mechinations

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Chapter rating: T  
> Late Fall, Year One

_Fuck him._

She's not really one to cuss. _Some_ people are raised with manners. But, if there was ever a time to cuss, this is it. Because _fuck him_.

"What did he expect? That I wanted to go my whole life never being able to touch anybody?"

"Rogue-" Kitty looks over at Bobby, and he's the picture of patience. But he really shouldn't have to be.

"I mean, seriously, never get to kiss or wear shorts in the summer. Can you imagine how hot it is to be in long sleeves in the heat? And now I don't have to!"

"I don't think she can hear us." Bobby manages to sound a little amused.

"I was what? I was going to hear about the Cure and think: 'No gross, I don't want that. I'd much rather stay Poison Skin Girl. I love having to be afraid of my own body all the time.' And isn't it _my_ body? Shouldn't I get to decide what I do or don't do with it? I don't remember asking for his opinion and I can't fathom why he thinks I needed his permission. He is so arrogant!"

Rogue practically collapses into the back of her chair. Her chest is heaving. She feels a little ridiculous, but she feels angrier than she feels ridiculous, because _fuck him._

"Don't let him get to you. You know how John is."

And Rogue calms a little, because that sounded friendly. Bobby just called him John.

But then Kitty jumps in. "Yeah, isn't he a mutant supremacist or something?"

Rogue just glares at her, because you know what, fuck Kitty too. Except, _ugh_ it's not Kitty's fault that John's being an asshole. And Bobby's right. John's always been an asshole. Except he used to be an asshole by _flirting_ with her, and now he's actually taking cheapshots. And maybe flirting with her when she couldn't even touch her boyfriend was a cheapshot too, but it pissed her off a lot less.

Either way, she figures she should take advantage of Bobby's good mood.

"We're supposed to have lunch today." Rogue makes a note that she'll have to go by his room to make sure he actually shows up. "Come with me." She watches Bobby's face turn hesitant, like he's about to say no. "Please." She cuts him off before he can form the word. "I need a buffer."

And by framing it as a favor to her, she knows he'll say yes.

So when he turns to Kitty and they lock eyes, and Kitty says "I'll come too", Rogue just checks it off as a victory.

* * *

Kitty's not sure exactly what's going on, but she's sure there's something. And whatever it is, she's pretty sure it's going to hurt Bobby. When that John guy came here, that guy she just had only ever known from Brotherhood debriefing sessions, she knew it was bad news. She just knew it. But what she didn't see coming was that Rogue would start palling around with him. Of course, she didn't know at the time that they had all been friends either. Bobby had left that part out.

Still, Kitty's been paying attention, and she's starting to wonder what was going on with the three of them back then, because Rogue and John don't really seem like friends to her.

Like, sometimes they're all in the rec room, everyone, and they're all watching a movie, and something funny will happen, and Bobby will laugh into Rogue's hair because of course he does, but then Rogue and John will look at each other like they're sharing the joke, like it's private between them, even though he's sitting way across the room. And sometimes… sometimes she sees them alone together, and they're just talking, but they're sitting really close to each other.

They just get really close to each other, too close. But, they never touch. Never. They don't even high-five or hug… and that's weird, because Rogue really likes to touch people, just because now she can and before she couldn't.

And, like right now, Rogue's sitting next to John instead of Bobby for some reason, and at one point, they're elbows brushed or something, and they shot away from each other like shrapnel. Bobby made a joke about it. So she knows he saw it too, even if he didn't take it seriously.

Kitty's not an expert or anything, she's not a telepath, but she's pretty sure that when you add it all together, it's _weird_ the way Rogue and John act. She's pretty sure something is going on there. And sure, she wouldn't shed any tears or whatever if Bobby and Rogue broke up, but she doesn't want Bobby to get his heart crushed either.

And that's why, even though she's Bobby's best friend, she's not going to say anything. It's not _just_ because she doesn't want to be the one to tell him _this_ bad news. Anyway, she doesn't have any solid proof yet, and Bobby wouldn't believe it without proof.

But still, she can't believe that Rogue is pushing John's company on them. He seems like an alright enough guy or whatever, but it's really wrong of them to throw it all in Bobby's face.

She always thought Rogue's name was kind of stupid, or at least not really right for her, but she gets it now. Rogue is not a good, honest person.

Bobby deserves better.

* * *

When Rogue shows up at his door, he almost tells her to fuck off, but he can't because she doesn't waste a second and she has him halfway down the hallway before he can get a word in.

She tells him to be on his "best behavior" because Bobby and Kitty are joining them, and he kind of hates Bobby but he misses him too. They were best friends before they were enemies.

Being here these months without Bobby talking to him makes him realize that Bobby's the closest thing he's ever had to a brother.

It's nice, all of them hanging out together again. Bobby's awkward at first, but Kitty helps Rogue make him feel comfortable, and once Bobby relaxes, things just fall back into place.

Rogue smiles at him like they planned this together, like this is a win that belongs to both of them. So he gives her that signal they've worked out that lets her know that he's heading back to his room, and she shows a bit later.

"That went so well!" She practically jumps into his arms when he opens the door, and he lets her joy wash over him.

He notices that she doesn't pull away right away, and he tightens his grip, holds her there like he can stretch the moment. It seems to work.

It's a while before she pulls away from him, and she seems hyperaware of his body too, the way that he is of hers. And she just laughs, and pushes past him into his room. She just goes right into his desk and grabs his notebook, and starts reading his writing out loud like he doesn't know what's in there. He likes hearing it all in her voice, and she smiles at him and seems to know that. He's struck by how comfortable she is in his space. It makes her feel like she's his a little.

Still, he doesn't need her reading everything that's in there, so he grabs it out of her hands, and she laughs and he smiles, and he asks her if she wants to play a few rounds of slap jack. And they sit on the ground and play.

They're both fast, so they take turns on who lingers on whose hand. She laughs a lot, like it diffuses the situation, makes it silly instead of charged, or maybe she's just happy. He laughs too, and it's definitely just because he's happy.

Maybe he feels like he has a family again. Maybe her joy is just infectious. Maybe he's glad, because he has something to do with that joy she's overflowing with. Maybe it's all three in some combination.

He doesn't think it really matters, because the air between them is thick and hot, and her hand has landed on his and is lingering _and lingering_.

"I have to go." Her words fall into the charged moment like a promise, like the 'have to' means more than the 'go'. He swears he sees her look at his lips, and he looks at hers, and then she's moving away from him. "I have to go meet Bobby."

 _Right, Bobby._ "To reward him for his good behavior." And it's not a question because that's what she's doing here, he thinks.

She considers it, and her shoulders do that sway thing she does sometimes that's so fucking sexy and feels like an invitation. "He's just my boyfriend is all." And she's holding his gaze, and the melody is strong in her voice, and the air still feels like the moment before a starter pistol goes off.

"Then you better go."

And it feels okay when she leaves because he gave permission, and because he's pretty sure she didn't want to, and because he thinks that maybe when she's with Bobby, she thinks about him.


	10. Parallels

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Chapter rating: T  
> Early Winter, Year One

It's getting hard, hanging out with Bobby and Rogue.

Sometimes, Kitty feels like Bobby likes her better than Rogue. Why shouldn't he? Maybe Kitty isn't his girlfriend, but they're really close. They've gotten really close the last couple of years. And since they almost kissed all those months ago, she just feels like things between them have been different. And why shouldn't they be?

If Rogue hadn't gotten the Cure, maybe they would have broken up.

He did almost kiss her that night, she's pretty sure. Kitty is really very sure.

Sometimes they're just hanging out, just them, and she's talking about whatever, and the way Bobby looks at her, the way he listens, she feels like the only other person in the world. And she's pretty sure he does too.

She thinks that if she kissed him, if he didn't have a girlfriend, that he'd kiss her back.

But he does have a girlfriend.

For now anyway, because with whatever is going on between Rogue and John, she thinks maybe Bobby will give her a shot soon.

She hopes so. She's getting tired of being just the best friend, and not the best friend and girlfriend.

* * *

Bobby loves winter. He can almost smell the chill in the air. He can feel a buzz even before first snow comes. It's hard to be mad about anything right now.

He's telling himself that's why he's going along with this whole thing. Besides, John can't really hurt them anymore, can he? And Rogue looks so happy too.

And Kitty is being Kitty about it. She helps Rogue out with the whole thing, even though he knows she thinks it's crazy. On one hand, he doesn't really like it, because he doesn't want her anywhere near John. But, in private, she assures him that she's just being nice.

Bobby figures, as long as Kitty isn't hanging out with John one-on-one, it's fine. And she isn't.

* * *

There's something about being around John that feels a lot like the moment before Bobby takes his pants off, and when the visual hits, Rogue has to close her eyes and shake her head like an etch-a-sketch.

She thinks maybe that's why things have been so _intense_ , why their relationship has started to ping-pong between fighting and best friends. And that's what he is.

He's her best friend.

John still likes it to be just the two of them most of the time, but he comes over and joins the group when she asks him to, and it's really nice. Now that it's the four of them together sometimes, it doesn't feel so wrong when they hang out alone, like it's something she has to hide from Bobby or feel guilty over. Now that Bobby and John are friends again, or friendly at least, she figures he can't mind that she and John are friends again too.

It makes being alone with John better.

He shows up to her room one day, says he wants to show her something, and he sits them both next to each other on her bed. He sits really close and their eyes are just locked in silence for a little while.

Just when she's thinking that maybe she should scooch aside a little, when she notices that he notices that she's biting her lip—and there's just something about when he looks at her mouth—he opens up his notebook. He starts reading her one of his stories, and it's actually really good.

It's scary, but it's kind of romantic too.

It kind of reminds her of them, but she doesn't say that because she doesn't want him to get the wrong idea. So, when he asks her what she thinks, she just says that she wants to know what happens next.

He says he hasn't written the next part yet. "What do you think should happen?"

She laughs. "I don't know."

He laughs too, but something about how he starts to clutch at the notebook, like he's trying to wring it out, about how his head hangs down… She thinks he looks a little disappointed.

"I'm not a writer." She puts her hand on his shoulder, and he looks up at her, and there's that silence and eye contact again, and she's biting her lip.

* * *

"I wish the snow were here already."

Bobby smiles at her, because Kitty's reading his mind. "It's still early."

"Still…" Kitty drags out the word in the way that lets him know exactly what she's thinking.

"I don't know that I could make it snow." He thinks about how he made it hail once, when it was raining. It's easier, freezing water that's already clumping up like that, then drawing together the humidity.

She smiles at him, and her smiles are so sweet. "You can't if you don't try."

He can't say no to that. So he tries.

It's not a lot at first, but Kitty's impressed anyway. She gets up and starts waving her arms in the air, laughs in joy, shoots him a big smile. He feels his chest swell a little, and it starts to snow harder.

She's really excited for him. He's excited too, because it's really cool, and he didn't think he could. He wouldn't have even tried if she hadn't asked him to.

She hugs him in congratulations, and he's laughing too, and when she pulls back, he realizes he wants to kiss her the way he sometimes gets tempted to.

And she's not laughing anymore. Her face gets a little serious, like she's thinking hard about something. He realizes he stopped laughing too, and he shakes his head, chuckles.

"I have to go tell Rogue."

And whatever she was feeling before, she smiles at him and nods, and they're heading back inside to grab his girlfriend so he can show her what he can do.

* * *

John starts to lean in, because hell, it really seems like she wants him to kiss her right now, and sure, she has a boyfriend, but maybe she's just waiting for a push to dump him.

"John." Her voice is breathy, barely a sound at all. But then, "What're you doing?"

_Abort, abort, abort._

But then there's a knock before he even gets a chance to pull back, or make up some dumb excuse that's obviously a lie.

Rogue starts to get up to answer, and in the same moment, Bobby's there, with his other girlfriend having just phased them both through the door. They're laughing, and Bobby almost falls over. It's clear she pushed him straight through without warning.

Rogue looks at them a little thoughtfully. John sighs, because for all the reasons she could break up with Bobby, he doesn't want it to be because of Kitty. He wants it to be because of him.

Rogue falls back onto the bed. She's so close to him, but she's looking at Bobby, and Bobby's looking at her. Bobby's big boyscout smile forms a small, sweet one on her face.

"You two are nauseating." John can't help it, because it is genuinely making him sick having to watch them. And yeah, maybe it's bothering him more than usual, because he just struck out.

Rogue gets up, and John feels her thigh brush up against his when her body lifts. Bobby meets her halfway, and gives her a small kiss.

John tries to avert his gaze, isn't quick enough to avoid seeing it, and meets Kitty's eyes on the other side of the room because she's doing the exact same thing.

"Marie," Bobby's voice is soft, and it's a twist in John's stomach. "I made it snow."

And that, that's a gut punch.

* * *

Rogue feels embarrassed when Bobby and Kitty get there, and John's sitting on her bed.

She didn't think about it twice before. She'd sat on John's bed a million times, and vice versa, and also, there was that one night. And now that she thinks about it, she realizes she doesn't want Bobby to know about that either, and maybe she's just way too comfortable with John and beds.

But then again, why shouldn't she be? They are friends, after all.

And for a second, it kind of seemed like he was going to kiss her, but she doesn't know that for sure. But she's looking at Kitty and Bobby right now, and they seem almost too close… but then Bobby's looking at her, and she's looking at Bobby, and everything's exactly how it's supposed to be.

"I made it snow."

Her smile widens. "That's amazing."

His arms are around her, and for a second she forgets that there's anything else in the world, but then she remembers and she's embarrassed again, because she doesn't want John to see this either for some reason.

"Show off." John's grumbling from the bed, playing with his lighter in his hands.

Bobby seems to be putting something together. He looks at John lounging on her bed and looks back at her.

"Show me." She says it before she even thinks anything through, because something about the situation feels off. It's all happening in slow motion. "I want to see you make it snow."

Bobby takes her outside by the hand with a big grin. Kitty follows, but John doesn't.


	11. High Winter

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Chapter rating: T  
> Mid-Winter, Year One

Now that she doesn't have to be covered up all the time, she has less patience for winter.

It was convenient at the time, but as a Southerner, she really just prefers warm weather and barely wearing anything at all. She's not a proper Southern Belle or anything, because she definitely went skinny dipping before her powers took everything fun off the table, but the point is that you can't get any farther from skinny dipping than a sweater over a wicking layer that's covered with a puffy jacket. And she's still cold, because the wind seeps in through her jeans and hat, and makes her legs and ears burn.

The snow is still kind of charming, in that way that things are when you've only ever seen them on TV growing up, but she swears she's never going to get used to the reality of the season.

"I think I need ear muffs." Rogue yells out to Bobby and Kitty who are still ice skating.

"Do people still make ear muffs?" Kitty is teasing her, because she grew up with snow and knows how much Rogue hates it. But, Kitty also owns a bunch of ear muffs.

"I need some new sweaters too." Because most of her sweaters are cotton, and she's learning that wool is better. She holds her cider close to her face, lets the steam warm her up a little.

John feels bad for her, she guesses, because he offers to share the wool blanket he has himself wrapped in. He says that winter's harder now that he's cured. She guesses his core body temperature has gone down a few degrees or something, but she doesn't know for sure.

He settles the blanket so that it's covering both their legs, and she shares her cider in exchange.

"We'll go shopping." Kitty's skates make a scratching sound as she comes to a stop in front of them.

Rogue turns to John. "I'll get you some stuff too." Because he doesn't own anything remotely appropriate for winter. He just showed up at the mansion with the clothes on his back. Since the cold creeped in, he's pretty much just shivered, and since winter started in earnest, he's been lugging around this blanket.

He scrunches his nose at her like he wants to say no, but he doesn't actually refuse, so she knows he doesn't mind letting her dress him up. "Just don't make me look like Bobby."

She nods, very mock-seriously. "Dark colors only. No excessive patterns."

He smiles. "This is all I'm asking for."

"Right." Kitty says the word very slowly, for their benefit. "That was totally normal."

Rogue laughs off the sarcastic commentary, and when she looks at John, he's got a warm smile on.

"I think we're going to head in. It's freezing." John just speaks for both of them, but he's right.

Rogue nods to him as he gets up. He wraps the blanket around her. "No, you need it more." And he acquiesces after some back and forth. She turns to Kitty, who is just about to get back to Bobby on the ice. "Y'all have fun."

* * *

Kitty tries to just enjoy Bobby's company, but it's hard. It's starting to seem more and more like Rogue has 2 boyfriends and she has 0, and she only really wants the one.

Maybe she's starting to feel resentful. Maybe she feels used. ...Maybe she feels like she's just an idiot. Maybe she made the whole thing up in her head.

"You've gotten a lot better." Bobby smiles in that way that only he can smile. It's like being blessed by a Greek god. Well, it was a good fantasy while it lasted.

Kitty shrugs, tries to smile but her heart isn't in it. "I had a good teacher." She can't even manage a flirty voice to match.

His face scrunches up. "Are you okay?" He touches her arm.

 _No._ When she tries to reply, all she can think about is that he's touching her, and nothing comes out because her inner monologue is just _it doesn't mean anything_ over and over again.

"Kitty?" And he really looks worried now.

"Yeah, I'm fine." And she just skates away, goes to the edge of the rink, and starts on the laces of her skates. She can't do this anymore. She can't be his friend. She's not his friend. It's not fair to either of them.

"Kitty, what's wrong?" He's right behind her. He takes off his skates too, so he can follow her as she storms off. He grabs her arm to stop her, and they're kind of in the middle of nowhere in the grounds, just surrounded by trees. "Kitty. Come on. Talk to me."

And she could say nothing, but sometimes she loses it too, even at him. "Fine! Alright!" And she's suddenly aware that she's just stomping around cold dirt in socks, and it hits her how ridiculous this whole thing has gotten. She just laughs.

Bobby's got a nervous smile on, but he waits, patiently, because he's a patient guy like that. That's part of why she's always liked him.

"I thought… you know, when we first skated… that first time we skated together…" She keeps waiting for him to get it so she doesn't have to say it out loud, but he's just looking at her with that expression he uses so that she knows he's listening. And she can't say it. She just can't. "I thought that you… that we…" And she just can't take the words any further.

He takes pity on her, exhales hard. "I know what you're talking about."

The whole thing is like daybreak. "I thought maybe it was just in my head." She's actually smiling.

But he's not. His expression is grim. "Look, I have a girlfriend."

And that's that. She nods, struggles to say anything for a while. Finally, like a parrot, "you have a girlfriend."

They just stare at each other for a while, and he digs his hands into his pockets, and they're both just wearing socks, and she can feel the cold seeping into her feet, and she thinks the dirt might be a little wet, and the whole situation is so ridiculous and embarrassing, and her eyes sting.

Kitty turns away from him, and just walks back to her room.

* * *

Rogue's not able to catch up with Kitty to go shopping. The other girl keeps blowing her off. _Oh well_. It's not like she even likes Kitty that much.

So, she takes John. It's easier anyway. She doesn't have to guess his size.

She actually has a lot of fun.

No matter what she's wearing, he tells her she looks fine, but she can tell from his expression when something looks good. He has a very expressive face, and whenever he thinks she looks pretty, he gets this small smile, and when she looks _good_ , his eyebrows lift a little for a second.

And he's a surprisingly well behaved doll too. She barely manages to get him to try on anything, but she convinces him into getting a couple of sweaters in a few different colors, and he picks out a coat, lets her pick out some scarves for him.

It's a lot of grey and black, but she's sneaked in a little dark green in there, and he says that he'll allow it because he knows it's her favorite color.

She gets a few things for Bobby too, because it feels weird not to.

John slips on a grey sweater with a green scarf for the rest of their day. It looks really good on him, makes the blue of his eyes more intense by contrast. And besides, they kind of match now.

He notices her staring, gets a big smile on his face, bites his lip. "What?"

She smiles small and sheepishly, and feels her cheeks heat up. "Nothing." _It's okay to notice._

But he doesn't let it go. "Really? Nothing?" He lifts his eyebrows, but different, in this incredulous way.

"You just…" _Ugh I can't believe he's making me say it._ "You look nice, okay." And it comes out a little hostile, but he just smirks. _Smug bastard._

* * *

They get lunch at this little Pakistani hole-in-the-wall off the highway. They get a spread of spicy meat and veggie dishes to share, and they eat everything with bread. It's a really nice break from her own cooking, a really different flavor. She says so, but John disagrees.

"I like your food better." But he's just flattering her, probably.

She can feel herself blushing again, and he's getting smug, and she has to change the subject. "Can you cook?" She's not sure where that comes from, but it'll do.

He nods shyly. "A little."

"Really?" She doesn't believe him, but she doesn't mean to sound so surprised either.

He laughs. "Not a lot. But, I didn't really have parents, so I kind of had to learn." He shrugs, drinks some water. "Nothing fancy. Not like you."

She smiles. She thinks it's the first time he's ever referred to his childhood at all. "I don't make anything fancy. They're just family recipes." She feels a little embarrassed too. Something about his attention feels magnified right now. She's not sure how red she is at this point.

"They're delicious." He says it like it's a matter of fact.

"Thank you." They hold eye contact for a while, maybe too long. "I've had a lot of fun today."

His smile widens. "Me too."

Her eyes flicker to his mouth for a second, and she catches herself, thinks maybe he noticed, drinks some water. The air feels thick.

She thinks about that moment a few weeks ago, where she thought for a second that he was about to kiss her, and she realizes, to think something like that, to think what she's thinking now… She thinks she might be falling for John Allerdyce.


End file.
